VICTORIA, Texas -- Sheriff's deputies found the bodies of 17 suspected illegal immigrants early Wednesday in and around a truck trailer that was packed with dozens of people and left at a South Texas truck stop. Another person who had been locked inside died at a hospital.

A suspect, believed to have been the driver of the tractor-trailer rig, was arrested hours later, Victoria County District Attorney Dexter Eaves said.

Authorities wouldn't immediately say if the people inside the trailer were illegal immigrants, though officials from the Mexican Consulate were at the truck stop to help identify the victims.

Jury finds gun industry not to blame for violence

NEW YORK -- In a victory for the gun industry, a federal jury Wednesday cleared 45 handgun manufacturers and distributors of allegations their marketing practices have stoked violence in black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

The lawsuit was brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The jury deliberated five days before reaching its verdict in a closely watched case that now goes to the judge for a final decision. The panel was unable to reach a verdict regarding 23 other defendants.

Because U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein decided the jury would play only an advisory role, both sides in the case will submit written arguments interpreting the verdict within 30 days. The judge will then make the final determination on liability and remedy.

Tornadoes claim father and son five decades apart

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Jane Kitchens was sitting silently next to the hospital bed where her father lay lifeless, a victim of a recent tornado, when she remembered her grandfather's similar death more than 50 years before.

Leonard Kitchens, 80, died Sunday after he hit his head on a doorjamb while taking cover from the tornado that ripped through the city Friday night. He was the only person killed in the storm.

His father, Harry, was killed in a May 31, 1947, tornado after he was hit by the doors on his storm cellar.

"It is very strange, but that's a tornado for you," Jane Kitchens said Tuesday. "They just do some really weird things."

Jury convicts man of kidnapping Miami mail carrier

MIAMI -- A man who abducted a mail carrier in her truck and led police on a slow-speed chase was convicted of kidnapping Wednesday after a jury rejected his claim that he was legally justified because his children were in danger.

Nevia Abraham, 38, could get life in prison at sentencing July 17.

Abraham seized postal employee Tonya Mitchell at gunpoint in January and set off an aimless, nationally televised chase around the Miami area that ended when police laid spikes in the road to puncture the truck's tires. Abraham finally released Mitchell and surrendered.

Bogus Marcos son sentenced to 12 years in prison

NEW YORK -- A man who claimed to be the son of former Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for a gold fraud that prosecutors said netted hundreds of thousands of dollars.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan called Edilberto Del Carmen, 41, a "serial fraudster" and "a future danger to society."